The Consulting Administrator
by sherlockian-quiet
Summary: John Watson, recently returned from the battlefield of apprenticeship, finds that the dullness of office life does not abate depression. What does, however, is the brilliance of consulting administrator Sherlock Holmes. [Office!AU] [Part-crackfic, part-canon]
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The story launched in with a _BANG CRACK-CRACK BANG-BANG CRACK_ of pure, complacency-shattering action. With a distracting volume of sound in tow, the world filled with the opaque blur of paperwork, jumping from image to image – papers, logbooks, fax machines, signatures.

A man's face swam into view and rolled aside restlessly. His eyes were closed. This typically means sleep, particularly due to the lengthy nature of their being shut, but to jump to conclusions is to give up the raw goodness of logic that your mother gave you.

"John!"

A distant, panicked voice. Designed to be eerie – make you leery. Manipulate your fear-y.

"John, help me! John!"

Paper. Logbook. Fax machine. Signature.

The man woke.

It happened really dramatically. He opened his eyes – drama. He sat – crazy. He sat in a room with brown on all sides. Brown everywhere. Brown, brown, brown. It's really minimalistic and I admire it and also I admire him. But enough about brown. He wore a brown suit and sat at a brown desk. His expression was blue, however. Letting the team down.

Speaking of letting the team down, it is viewed as significantly unprofessional to fall asleep at your desk. Particularly in an office during your work shift. Fortunately, the only witness present was Human Resources officer Ella, who sits opposite him at their sad, brown desk.

"Hello," John said. That is his name: John. In case you did not already surmise. He is a polite man. Therefore: hello. He said hello. In case you did not already surmise.

"Are you depressed?" asked Ella.

An unconventional greeting, but John accepted it. His eyes wandered the surface of his desk. There was a stapler there that could be useful for his purposes. A good shot at one of his veins would suffice.

He reached for it, nudging aside perfectly sharp scissors in the process. Ella also reached. She got there first because she is athletic. She played volleyball as a child and ended up in the regional championships. This is a good achievement as she lived in quite a rural area, but also not good because a kidney burst during the final round and she could not reach a hospital in time to repair most of the damage. She will never walk again.

"I'm not sure how those are connected," John said, impertinently. His eyes flicked to the window. It was a notable drop. Perhaps he could step upon the ledge, spread his arms and fall forward. Blood would run from his across his face onto the pavement. But for some reason, the idea repulsed him. As he considered this reaction, Ella discreetly took down the window and hid it behind some desks.

"I suppose I am," John complied to her question, as she again took her seat.

She pursed her lips. I am not sure how people manage this, but I'm sure you can envision it if you've read _Harry Potter_ enough times.

"John. You're an administrator. It's going to take you a while to adapt to salesperson life. And writing in a logbook about everything that happens to you will honestly help you."

Here it comes. I know you've got the words in your head. John hasn't even said them yet and you know it. Why don't you give him a chance to spit it out before you go thieving the words from his mouth?

"Nothing happens to me."

There you go, John. How very witty. And very soon, how very wrong.

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 **A/N: Yeah, I have literally nothing to say. But I always love these little bolded notes at the end of chapters, giving some cute insight into the author's busy schedule and accomplished life. Now I feel professional, like this is a professional story. A professional story that degrades the great Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to administrators. Sigh. My life is in order.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"John! John Watson!"

The man in question – if you didn't realise, which is completely fine by the way, the man in question is John Watson – turned to see an old colleague of his. To be precise, he had seen him immediately earlier while walking down the hallway, but because he a Bitter and Reminiscent temperament, he didn't really want to put up with socialising.

But he didn't initiate a move like a seasoned introvert – namely, turning abruptly on his heel and limping away rapidly, face etched with the self-loathing of a man retrieving a crucial forgotten item. Instead, being new to the sport, he continued on his path and hoped to heaven that Mr Stamford did not perceive him.

"John!"

He did. In case you did not realise. Which is completely fine. By the way.

"Oh, Mike, hi," John said, with as much sincerity as he could fake. (M*A*S*H reference! *cries at how inactive the M*A*S*H fandom is nowadays*)

"That was pretty mean," Stamford informed him.

"Don't mention it," John said.

"Yeah, I'm not going to." And he didn't.

Stamford was sort of pudgy, but in a nice way.

"I know, I got fat," he pointed out.

John made a half-hearted attempt to placate him, but to be honest, it suited him. Maybe John could have seen that too if he wasn't so miserable. (Quick shout-out to the John/Stamford shippers.)

"Everyone has already seen this exchange about a hundred times," Stamford continued, "so I'll just cut to the chase. You're being evicted from your brown office."

"That wasn't in the series," John protested.

Stamford leaned in close. "Plot twist," he whispered. And he kissed John on the cheek.

John did not notice. He never did.

"I can't afford to live in London on an apprenticeship pension," he moaned.

"And you can't bear to live anywhere else," Stamford conciliated. "Not the John Watson I – "

"Yes, yes, we all know it," John interrupted. "We know _A Study in Pink_ off by heart. Let's save some time and this poor writer's hands; they're aching, and you know she's a hypochondriac."

"You're the second person who's said that to me today."

John made eye contact for maybe the first time. Stamford's poor heart soared.

"Who was the first?"

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 **A/N: Seriously, where is the M*A*S*H fandom these days? Can someone give me directions? Probably not the time nor place for these little shout-outs but oh, well. This chapter was quite short but so is my patience. And John.**

 **Furthermore: trust me, the beautiful Sherlock Holmes himself will make his debut next chapter.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Sherlock Holmes was tall. Sherlock Holmes was pretty. Sherlock Holmes was striking.

To tell the truth, I really just wanted to write Sherlock Holmes over and over because it's a beautiful name. Has quite the ring to it. Although you never know whether a name has a ring to it due to genuine catchiness or simple familiarity. Nevertheless, it has a ring. Happily, he does not. He is not married, nor engaged, nor anything else for that matter. I am very, very glad of this fact.

So, evidently, is John, if his gaping mouth and sparkling eyes are anything to go by. It's a stark juxtaposition to his pallid form only seconds before. But let's not jump to conclusions.

"What a beautiful man," John breathed.

Again, don't jump to conclusions.

"He's ethereal," he continued.

Don't do it.

"The love of my life."

However black-and-white this may seem, there are simply no conclusions to be drawn. No deductions to be made at all. I am afraid, die-hard Johnlock shippers: you are out of luck.

The man in question – Sherlock Holmes, in case you did not realise; which is perfectly fine, by the way – was standing quite rigidly by a desk. He had hair of windswept curls that appeared yet perfectly styled that was quite stunning (and _such a loss_ for the Christmas Special. Why did they alter the hair? That mop of beautiful hair? I wailed in despair when I saw the first promo image. Crises wilt in comparison to this catastrophe, of course.)

Framing aquamarine eyes were wire-rimmed glasses. Now UH-UH-NO-SHHHH *flailing hands like Dan Howell trying to hush his audience* I know he doesn't have glasses in the series. (Except for that Decidedly Uncomfortable scene with Mr Magnussen.) WELL, THIS AIN'T GONNA FOLLOW THE SERIES TO A POINT, SUGAR, SO YOU BETTER GET USED TO IT. Or I guess you can leave. You can leave, if you want. Okay. Sorry. Please stay? I'm quite lonely.

I'm giving him glasses because the original Sherlock Holmes has them. I think. That could definitely be wrong. I've only read _A Study in Scarlet_ and that was just once.

It's a distinct possibility that I'm mixing this up with the original M*A*S*H book, in which Hawkeye had glasses. Another impromptu appearance from M*A*S*H! (Shout-out to the hibernating M*A*S*H fandom, who only stir slightly in response.)

Anyway, what is it with this whole conflict over glasses? Maybe this reluctance is a catalyst in the underrepresentation of people with poor eyesight, even after HP. Wait a second! Sherlock Holmes needs good eyesight. He's a super-observer. He needs 20/20!

Then again, there was a really good fanfiction I once read called 'Dear John' in which Sherlock had glasses. Maybe that's what I'm mixing it up with. But he seems so endearing with glasses.

This is a dilemma. What am I to do?

"Those are really endearing glasses," John piped up from the doorway. It took about ten minutes of rehearsing in his head, three throat-clearings and a pep talk from Stamford, who was hovering by his elbow, but he did it. The fact that his voice cracked wildly while he performed it is of no substance.

Well, I guess he has glasses now. There's no going back. A character cemented its existence.

Sherlock Holmes looked up.

"I don't really need them," he said.

He took them off and placed them upon the desk. Then he turned and continued scratching in a logbook. He was obviously absorbed and hard at work. John's heart grew fond.

"Before you waste my time with your querying, I would like to work with you," Sherlock Holmes announced, finally. He placed down his pen and began collecting his papers. No rustling sound was emitted as he possesses the skill of the supernatural. (Shout-out. Castiel. Blah.)

"Who said anything about workmates?"

"I did."

John accepted this. It was true.

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 **A/N: Wow. You've got this far. I'm so flattered that I will update tomorrow and waste your time even sooner!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"The name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Department," declared Sherlock, unsolicited. He strode towards the door with his bundle of paperwork still in his arms. Unfortunately, John was still positioned quite rigidly in the doorway.

Perturbed, Sherlock tried to sidle his way past. The dumbfounded state of mind John was suffering in presence of such astounding beauty had choked his faculties. His eyes were trailing along the Sherlock's path at a dreamy lag, like the exhaust from a vehicle. The vehicle would be red to symbolise lust, because stories should have symbolism and this, dear reader, is a story. Or it could be pink, to symbolise love.

Erstwhile (I learned this word while watching _Fargo._ Shout-out to the Fargo fandom! Yeah! Lester Nygaard! I'm still rooting for him based on the fact that the actor is Martin Freeman. That is literally the only reason. Otherwise, he's pretty detestable. But how can you ignore Mr Freeman? To be honest, I haven't been able to bring myself to finish Series 1 yet so I can't actively participate in the fandom to avoid spoilers. Anyway, shout-out. This has probably crossed the line for shout-outs but YOU'D BETTER GET USED TO IT, SUGAR. Please don't leave.) I did not believe that love at first sight is possible, or even love itself. Then I watched _A Study in Pink._ So that theory was nullified.

Sherlock looked him over, his eyes cold. He could have looked at him appreciatively, but he did not. He gave him a cold, cursory glance. Promptly after, he deposited the paperwork glibly in Stamford's arms, positioned two large hands on John's shoulders, and shoved him methodically to the floor. After a considerable thud of flesh, he recollected his possessions, stepped taciturnly over the body and continued on his way. His coat snapped in the icy gale left by his walk.

"That was abrupt," a voice came from the floor.

It was not the floor talking. In case you did not surmise. Which is fine.

By the way.

"Yeah. He's always like that." Stamford considered John. He was sprawled spread-eagled upon the polished floor, looking dazed, as if he had seen an angel. Ironic. I always did appreciate those Sherlock!Angel fanart.

Stamford's heart ached at the sight.

Then, to the distant gasps of the John/Stamford shippers who dare not believe their eyes, Stamford swooped down and kissed John smack on the lips.

As he drew away, exalted and nervous and buzzing all at once, he snuck a look at John's countenance. He looked thoughtful.

"Do you think he noticed me?" John implored.

Stamford stared.

"Mr Holmes, I mean," John continued. "Do you think he saw me?"

"I think so," Stamford whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

"I see," John said. He fell silent. Then:

"What do you think it would be like to kiss a man?" he mused, before hastily adding, "Not that I'm gay."

Stamford's fragile heart dropped into his gut and shattered.

"I wouldn't care to find out," he forced out. He caressed John's face with a tremulous hand and stood. The floor rang with his footsteps as he gave himself up to distance between himself and a besotted John Watson upon the floor.

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 **A/N: Poor, dear Stamford. How dark, how dark, indeed… the secrets, that he keeps. *Les Miserables reference* I would say I'm sorry for all these shout-outs but that would necessitate remorse. Maybe I'll get a little bit of Sherlock in here somewhere.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

As the dawn set pink on a new day, John locked his car carefully and made his way over to the office building. It was quite a large building, set squat yet with the capacity to loom. He ignored the ripe pinkness of the sky, as people are wont to do once they have reached the Academia of Adulthood, and passed the many beggars strewn between his car and the door.

"Spare some change, sir?" asked one.

"Don't mind if I do," came a low voice. A gloved hand pressed a scrap of paper into the woman's gnarled hand and rose to his full, intimidating height. His eyes locked with John's with the bluntness of a sharpened dagger. Acuteness swam behind those sea irises.

"Mr Holmes," John choked out. "A pleasure."

"Sherlock, please," he replied, cordially. He extended a glove. John took it from him and then offered his hand for a handshake. His expectations were met.

With the lubrication of human interaction complete, they continued on their way to the office doors.

"Mr Holmes, may I enquire something?"

"You may, Doctor."

"Back there, woman requiring your assistance. Why a scrap of paper?"

The taller man raised an eyebrow. The shorter man hurried to keep up with his lengthened strides.

"Isn't that all that cash is, Doctor Watson?"

"Well, perceptibly, Mr Holmes. Indeed that is its composition. But why paper unmarked by the symbol of value, the coloration of wealth?"

Sherlock stopped abruptly. John stumbled in his attempt to maintain the suddenly negative pace.

"Doctor Watson, may I enquire upon _you_?"

"Of course, Mr Holmes."

He paused. Surely he did not require time to consider his words; the thought was already alighting behind those cerulean eyes. Perhaps he was compromising his speed of thought for the sake of not disrupting the plebeian pace of the conversation, which was evidently all the good doctor could maintain.

"Why are we speaking in this fashion?"

"Simple, Mr Holmes. The author wishes to feel intellectual, if only for a fleeting moment. She will soon revert to the inconsequential babblings characteristic of a crackfic."

"How pre-eminent."

"Indeed."

They continued upon their way.

"In response to your query," Sherlock said patiently, much in contrast to the rough manner of yesterday's meeting, "the markings of wealth which you speak of do not dictate prosperity. In the end, a man's mind is all his money. It is simply, as you said, paper, and as equal to a blank scrap as anything else of its kind."

"But do you not think," John dissented valiantly, "that a beggar such as she would have better use for a scrap of paper that yields universal delusion of its value, in contrast to a paper with a value that is apparent to a concentrated source of one?"

"Oh." Sherlock stopped again, and shot out an arm to steady John when he tripped. It did not work, and the pavement received him gaily. "I did not perceive that."

John struggled to rise, panting. Suddenly, Sherlock whirled around and shoved him roughly against the pavement again. John let out a cry of astonished pain.

"How dare you, Doctor, accuse me of false sight when you walked by altogether! At least I, subhuman as I may be, attempted to relinquish the separation between the individual on his feet and the one on his knees. I noted your sympathy – your face is not so much an open book but a work designed with your own careful etchings – but, fie, do you consider yourself any better than those who walk by without a glance?"

The only response was John spitting upon the pavement. The blood formed a slick _y_ as it ran across the bitumen.

"I shall take that as an affirmation. Shame on you, John Watson! Do you truly perceive that your looks of sympathy and thoughts of benevolence have more meaning than my gesture? The gift of a worthless scrap? The humiliation of being forced to accept such little value?"

Sherlock stood, panting heavily, his hands caught in his hair, as if on the verge of tearing it out. The sight of John, writhing slowly upon the bitumen with hands covering his face, jerked him from his tirade.

Reaching down with one hand gloved and the other pale and supine, he took hold of John's jacket and hoisted him over to face the sky. The pink had leached from it, leaving only a watered-down blue.

John stared up at the heavens. His eyes were opaque. Blood ran from his forehead and across his nose to trickle into the spreading pool about his head. Sherlock noted this with relative apathy.

"You know, that's a nice aesthetic," he remarks. "I must try to remember it for the future."

He then prised his glove from John's frozen clutches, shook off a red globule and handed it to a nearby beggar. There were about a hundred of them occupying the small car park, but they are all nameless, as is the way in society. They had watched the exchange with more than a little interest.

Without a further glance, Sherlock left John Watson upon the ground and completed the final steps to the office doors.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Fresh air. John didn't feel it so much anymore. It would be an astonishing phenomenon in the office. Everyone breathes each other's air there; it helps in feeding off each other's tension. Although usually, it's just John and the HR lady. It's not Ella's space there, not really, but after the debilitating effect the apprenticeship had on John's state of mind, she is there quite unremittingly.

Fresh air. He sits and breathes it in. Fresh. Air.

It's not so much the health of it in his lungs that he savours. It was the first gust as he limped through the empty space left by the sliding glass door. That first crisp buffet that ripened his senses and sloshed vigour into his veins from a bucket trembling with the weight of its content. He felt a pull to close his eyes, as they do in films when influenced so by nature, but quickly caught the ridiculousness of the act when the initial wonder passed and he could perceive the world more acutely.

The sky was pink again. The atmosphere unfurled above him like a rose, the translucent clouds undulating like blushing petals. He mirrored its temperament, feeling a flush rise in his cheeks. Was he a new man now? A reformed individual from the chaos of apprenticeship life, then the dullness of office existence, where efficiency is key and human spirit is not? It was like being pulled from the flames and dumped in an ice bath, before being forced under and drowned, to remain forever in a limbo where the years stretched before him in identical copies, all lined up in a row, with age slowly withering their corners.

But now he was a man who could watch a pink sunrise, and have coherent thoughts of awe. _This is wonderful,_ he told himself. _Nature is beautiful. I could watch this all day._

But, like the sickening in his gut was whispering, age withers corners. Time passed, and the sky seemed artificial. He grew adjusted to the air and it turned sour in his mouth – the atmosphere to which he was acclimatised. And slowly, the tendrils of dullness began to creep within his head like a poison.

By the time he gave in and went back inside, he was relieved. In his mind, this was evidence enough of his poor character; reason enough to feed his self-hatred. He was not a changed man. There is no change possible in this world for a man as dull and dulled as John Watson.

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 **A/N: This one's a little depressing. But I am feeling blue. Mostly due to dissatisfaction with my life. Now I'm going to continue writing fanfiction to dissociate myself from this fact and not fix a thing.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The walls were white. The sheets were white. The midday sky, through the sliding glass door leading to the balcony where John had suffered temporary nature appreciation, was white. Also white, a starched and panicked white, was the porcelain face of Sherlock Holmes as he barrelled through the entrance into the room.

"John! I cannot express how utterly apologetic I am," he cried. "There are no adequate words to express my remorse. This is despite my simply outstanding lexicon, so I hope this highlights how dire my self-loathing is at this moment."

"Your voice is at a high volume, and yet you are not employing exclamation marks," John pointed out.

"Indeed," Sherlock wailed.

"Can I ask why that is so?"

"It gives the appearance of sophistication and relative restraint."

"There is none evident to me."

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle writes that way."

"Accepted," John complied.

I may be forced to amend my earlier statement in the snow-white description of Sherlock's countenance. In truth, his blue eyes had become a watered-down pale and rimmed with red, giving unmistakeable grounds for the deduction of unremitted weeping.  
John bunched his hands beneath his blanket and gazed with wonder. Whilst a stranger would perceive the haggard and discordant appearance of Sherlock with a degree of repulsion, John Watson's heart began to accelerate perhaps hazardously.

"I did not mean to land you in hospital," Sherlock was continuing. "I was suspicious, of course, when I did not note your presence in our shared office, but I labelled your absence with the simple tardiness and lethargy trademark of the mindless working-class! Even with my astounding faculties, I could never imagine it was indeed I who spurned your blood from your body all over the pavement just outside"

John offered another exclamation mark from the bundle beside his bed. Sherlock took it with profuse thanks – John jolted unsubtly as their fingers touched – and tacked it carefully to the end of his sentence.

"I _was_ a little perplexed at the blood upon one hand. I presumed there was an innocent explanation for it. But this – this! – is _felonious_."

He paused, breathing heavily. Without warning, he raced to John's bedside, dropped to his knees and grabbed John's hands. Exclamation marks shattered upon the floor.

"Doctor Watson," he breathed, almost too quiet to hear. "Forgive me."

The clock forgot to tick.

The faces of the two men were barely inches apart. Sherlock gazed imploringly into John's eyes. His lip quivered. A schoolboy flush was creeping slowly up his cheeks, giving a rosy tinge like the dawn sky. His hands trembled slightly as they enclosed John's protectively.

John froze, unable to process what was happening. His heart hammered against his ribcage. Powerless to stop himself, he leaned forward, sheets rustling between them. Closing the distance.

Mere breaths apart, Sherlock whispered faintly, "Do you forgive me?"

He covered John's hands more firmly, drawing them to him. Tears wavered in the depths of his irises.

"Yes," John heard his voice say, distantly. "Of course I forgive you."

"Good."

Without warning, the tears snapped from Sherlock's eyes. The flush and quivering penitence disappeared. Once supplicatory and self-loathing, his countenance was now ice. In one smooth movement, he withdrew his hands and stood, breaking eye contact effortlessly to casually check his watch. As John ogled, whiplashed from this turn in events, Sherlock wiped his palms on his coat and slipped gloves from his pocket. As he slid them on, he gave John one more cursory scan and rolled his eyes.

Then he swept from the room without a second glance.

Stunned, John stared at the empty space where he once was. Then, dazed, he looked down at his hands. With the movements of a sleepwalker, he raised them slowly and pressed them to his lips.

A blur of nurses hurried through the door. A distant haze of noise accompanied them, bustling forth and around, alarmed by the sudden spike in his heart rate that had reached a peculiar height.

The walls were white. The sheets were white. The noise was white.

His eyes trailed to the balcony. Above, the sky was a rosy pink.

Like the blush on John's cheeks that Sherlock had left behind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

You can decide whether to believe John's state of mind or not, but he felt a trifle nervous returning to the office. He had been released from the hospital shortly subsequent to the incident with his heart rate, after health professionals – known to us imprecisely as doctors – could not illuminate the clinical cause.

With only a minor bandage over his stitched nose, he padded across the car park with sunshine searing the back of his neck. He danced around the beggars, belittled his own sympathetic thoughts and nonchalantly stepped around the pool of his own blood, dried parch on the bitumen to a dark brown. He then strolled inside, battling the urge to whistle (the Urge is a chemical released by the action of strolling) and was smacked pleasantly with a gust of stale air-conditioner.

The footsteps. The elevator. The hallway. Stamford didn't see him this time from his place hunched against the wall, inspecting a sandwich with grimy fingers. John allowed himself, a little, to ponder whether things were really looking up.

Someone looked up.

"Lester! How you doin'?" he exclaimed, his accent decidedly foreign. John berated himself for his austerely racial remark. "Back from the hospital already? How's the nose?"

"You and I are not acquainted," John informed him. He still possessed that strange affectation that made him sound as if he lived in 1895. "I am no… Lester."

"Oh! Right you are," the man said, leaning back in his chair. He bore an imposing moustache which twitched metrically as he spoke. "You look mighty alike, is all. Sorry to bother yah."

He promptly turned back to his computer and resumed stabbing at his mouse. It shrieked in pain.

John continued on his way.

While seeking his office, he could truly appreciate the extent of the building. Truly, a frazzling amount of people worked there. He passed through swinging door after swinging door, padding by many working in small, suffocating rooms, backs bent and minds humming the same tune, the same loop, over and over, until the music is etched into their consciousness even after they go home. These miracles of cognizance, expending life observing the clock, watching time drip away until they can return to a house at the dusk of both day and life.

With these comical thoughts, John passed a short man hunched over his desk with a rack of colourful pamphlets by his bandaged and quivering hand. He also had a bandage over his nose, much like John's. In fact, he looked precisely like John, if a bit aged – but by stress, not by life. He had a frightened, disorganised look about him, like a deer caught in the headlights of a car which had already slammed on the brakes.

As a worker of little political worth, he soon left John's mind as he shoved open the exit door to the insurance department.

But to his shock, the edge of it thumped hollowly upon oak.

It was barely a quarter way open. Perplexed, John cast his eyes behind him for someone of assistance. All office workers maintained their steady pace of fixating eyes upon screens and scratching temporarily relevant numbers upon temporarily utilitarian logbooks. One picked up a screeching phone and deposited a monotonous voice into it.

John turned back to the door. With a feeling of the utmost humiliation, but feeling it necessary, he forced his head through the opening and peered out of the corner of his eyes, the central arteries of his retinas aching with the strain. And there it was.

 _221B,_ the plaque declared. _Baker Department._

As it happened, a doughy smell was becoming more noticeable. John noted this with a raised eyebrow.

Without warning, the pressure against the door disappeared and it flung open with his weight. With a cry, John felt stability evaporate like smoke through his fingers. Unable to stop it, carpeted floor rushed up and slated him. A concentrated eruption of dull pain echoed through his skull and shook his teeth.

"You seem to take residence upon the floor more frequently than most," mused a low, sonorous voice.

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 **A/N: Here's to me hoping my writing isn't complete garbage.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Molly Hooper was sitting at her computer.

This in itself is not surprising. In fact, it is so unsurprising that it is quite desolating. The long hours she expends gazing at a blinking screen, exerting nothing on mostly desultory and all tedious tasks, seems to deny the superiority of conscious choice. The fact of her lengthy absorption has evolved gradually, causing the element of appalment to fade into the background, unseen. Unhappily, the only symptom of her debilitating compulsion was the dull and systematic headaches that plagued her like a black cloud, and the leaden sickness in her stomach rebelling against the hours of inactivity that human life had evolved to preclude.

She perceived herself as unspectacular, and that served as a form of excuse. Unspectacular people can use their time however they please, for unspectacular people are forgotten. Unspectacular people do not have an impact that anyone commemorates; unspectacular people do not have capacity enough to even dare hope for such an accomplishment. And if one is not remembered, then why integrate toil into your life when you could lounge with the same result?

And so she lounged.

The screen blinked. The mouse clicked. Her eyeballs twitched unblinkingly.

Her mouth was parched, but she did not rise. She was gripped in the blanket of lethargy that mindless networking strips from your bed to smother your brain.

She scrolls. She reads, a little. She laughs, but it is hollow.

Dimly, she wonders where her potential went.

That thought is one of the whispers that inhabit the musty cave at the back of her mind. The family of undertones, mostly childhood dreams and parental expectations half-skewed from passing time. They remind you who you once thought you were. They whisper to you of ambition and passion that had long since expired. With mocking tones, they highlight to you the sheer contrast between your past successes and the person – if you are so falsely pre-eminent to name yourself so – you are now. How unspectacular you have become.

The technology turns your mind off, you see. Like a switch. And the voices grow very distant, very suddenly. Very unimportant. You are a general, tacking a pin in a map of prospective battlefields, behind the security of your desk. The weeping voices are far away.

You can smile. You can laugh. However hollow it may be.

But when Molly Hooper notes the unnaturally late hour, and some semblance of old, constructive habits surfaces like a breath of air, she wrests momentary self-control and switches the computer off. Her finger grazes the cool nub in a subversion of roles: a machine evoking the movement of a human.

The artificial colour and theatre of the screen cuts dark. She is left in shadow. She never turned on a light elsewhere; not the kitchen, not the lamp, not her brain. The computer was her only source of delight and illumination, however artificial it may be.

The dusk steals over her mind, and the voices reject stealth.

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 **A/N: For about the third time, I am trying to give up my compulsion to spend hours on technology each day. YouTube, Tumblr, editing videos - I feel like it's really stripping away my potential. Hence, seeing as my potential is a pretty significant part of my happiness, I need to do something.**

 **I feel like I am wasting away my life, my privileged life. I contempt myself. I am becoming, you see, quite unspectacular.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

John smelled carpet. John smelled coat. John smelled something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on, as love is intangible, but it was in the air.

With a groan, he dragged himself upright. Sherlock Holmes stood, observing him with almost a feline watchfulness.

"Good God," Sherlock declared, a little like Edmund Talbot from _To the End of the Earth._ How odd is that? They even look similar. "What happened to your nose?"

John stared incredulously. Sherlock waited patiently.

"I – I injured it," he said, eventually (not to mention unnecessarily).

"How terrible," Sherlock soothed.

He had a carpet slung around his shoulders like a coat, which explained the first two smells. The third, of course, was absolutely unexplainable. Johnlock shippers are not so much clutching at straws but dropping them.

Suddenly, John's eyes dilated wide as saucers.

"Mr Holmes," he breathed.

"Oh, not this again," Sherlock snapped. He flung off his carpet to reveal a black Belstaff beneath. "I had hoped that the author would have incorporated some sense into you by now. Particularly seeing as, canonically, you are an MD impelled by intellect and adrenaline."

The carpet, after moments of being suspended airborne, suddenly crumpled to the floor.

He looked back to the shorter man. "Tell me. Do you like it or not?"

John wrestled his gaze from Sherlock's regard and threw it carelessly across the room. It was very cluttered, and increasing by the minute.

"Love it," he affirmed.

He did not notice the folders behind Sherlock multiplying, nor the computers proliferating until some were nudged off the desk and smashed upon the floor. All he could see were the depths of those cerulean eyes, the tantalising curve of his –

"Shut _up_ ," Sherlock barked at him, snapping his fingers in front of John's face. "I do _not_ appreciate being objectified."

John stared at him blankly, torpid with yearning.

Sherlock bore the expression of one regretting a decision more by the second. It is the something both he and the author share, as she types out a narrative as comatose as her life is bland.

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 **A/N: This is it. I thought I had potential but I have none. Writing is the only thing I've ever enjoyed and now hope for that is gone too. The early stages of this 'story' were pleasant to write as I was naïve of my total lack of ability. But now, it is clear. I'm sorry. Have a good day.**


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